Biagio Salvemini, ‘Interstitial’ spaces, markets and merchants in the central Mediterranean: three case-studies on the South of Italy in the early-modern period The essay tries to shed light on the vast mediterranean world traditionally confined, by the historians, in the lowest level of the economy and of the exchanges. The three case studies regard 1. the organisation and transformation in the long period of the countryside of one of the southern regions deeply involved in the international market, the Apulia; 2. the “scattered ports” of the west coast of Calabria in the XVIIIth century, in which the different functions of the classic commercial towns are not at all absent, but are distributed among a variety of localities, not all situated on the seaside; 3. the XVIIIth century central-apulian “merchant-mariners”, who, putting in contact the provincial specialised economy with the international market, avoid the intermediation of the big commercial companies based in England or France. In the three cases, this ‘interstitial’ world shows a high level of complexity, sophistication, flexibility, in contrast with the generalisations widely adopted even by the standard professional discourse on the past and present of the Mediterranean sea.
Spazi, mercati e mercanti "interstiziali" nel Mediterraneo centrale. tre studi di caso sul Mezzogiorno d'Italia in età moderna
SALVEMINI, Biagio
2011-01-01
Abstract
Biagio Salvemini, ‘Interstitial’ spaces, markets and merchants in the central Mediterranean: three case-studies on the South of Italy in the early-modern period The essay tries to shed light on the vast mediterranean world traditionally confined, by the historians, in the lowest level of the economy and of the exchanges. The three case studies regard 1. the organisation and transformation in the long period of the countryside of one of the southern regions deeply involved in the international market, the Apulia; 2. the “scattered ports” of the west coast of Calabria in the XVIIIth century, in which the different functions of the classic commercial towns are not at all absent, but are distributed among a variety of localities, not all situated on the seaside; 3. the XVIIIth century central-apulian “merchant-mariners”, who, putting in contact the provincial specialised economy with the international market, avoid the intermediation of the big commercial companies based in England or France. In the three cases, this ‘interstitial’ world shows a high level of complexity, sophistication, flexibility, in contrast with the generalisations widely adopted even by the standard professional discourse on the past and present of the Mediterranean sea.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
